Doctor Strange Director Rumors Downplayed By Marvel Studios President

With Edgar Wright's Ant-Man now in the casting stages and both Thor 3 and Captain America 3 plans getting underway, it seems as though Marvel Studios is now starting to turn its attention towards the long-brewing Doctor Strange. Last week a trade report came out saying the the company was meeting with four different filmmakers - Mark Andrews, Nikolaj Arcel, Dean Israelite and Jonathan Levine - but before you start getting too excited or attached to those names, you should know that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has thrown a bucket of cold water on the whole thing.

Speaking with IGN, the studio head confirmed that they have started to meet with a bunch of different filmmakers who could potentially helm Doctor Strange, but that some of the finer details mentioned in the previous report aren't true, Feige saying that the names mentioned and the info about which way the studio is leaning is false. He added that they are currently looking at directors from all kinds of backgrounds, and that there's really only one requirement: they have to "do something that [they] think is really cool."

Switching focus from director to star, Feige also talked a bit about how they are going about choosing their lead actor. After dispelling Johnny Depp rumors that have been around for a while, the exec explained how they plan on searching for the right performer for the part and that a big name might not even really matter:

"I would say that we're pretty transparent, right? Doctor Strange would be our -- well, depending on when we make it, it could be our 13th, 14th, 15th movie, right? I think if you're looking to track our decision-making and how we've done things, we have a pretty wide track record now where you can sort of see. So, no, a movie star is not required, but that doesn't mean a movie star wouldn't be great. It just depends."

If you're doing your Marvel Math correctly, you now know that Doctor Strange has now basically been confirmed as one of the three movies that Marvel will be developing to come out after Ant-Man in 2015. Of course, it's hard to tell if Feige actually knows where Doctor Strange will fall in the upcoming schedule and is just hiding it, or if Phase 3 is really kind of up in the air right now. Considering that the studio president previously said that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is mapped out through 2021, I'm betting that it's the former.

Right now we don't know much about the progression of the project, but for now you can watch the first 10 minutes of the Doctor Strange TV pilot/movie that was made back in the late 1970s: